Snippets from Spain

An Arduous Hike Helped Me Get Spain’s Most Famous Architect

After tromping on muddy, slippery trails for a week in the Pyrenees Mountains, my husband, son and his girlfriend, and I boarded a bus from the medieval hamlet of Beget sunk in a wooded valley in Cataluña to Barcelona. Still searching for the wonders of the natural world, we immersed ourselves in an urban version―the woodwork, mosaics, and ceramic tiles in the fantastical structures of the Spanish designer and architect Antoni Gaudí.

I first experienced Gaudí’s work in 2013 in Comillas, a town in northern Spain. Fabio, our children, and I were staying in the nearby village of Carriazo because we had exchanged our Manhattan apartment for a Spanish family’s house in a place where the cows and sheep outnumbered the town’s 207 residents. We’d seen the commercial zone in three minutes so we piled in the car to drive to a house that Gaudí built. The house, called “El Capricho,” which means “whim,” was downright weird. It lived up to its name. I’d never seen anything like it and I sure wouldn’t want to live there.

Gaudi's El Capricho and some of its many visitors, including with the architect (credit last photo: Designboom)

Post-Pyrenees I made a beeline to see as much of Gaudí’s work as I could.

Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) incorporated his three passions―architecture, nature, and religion―into the buildings, furniture, and parks he conceived and constructed. He created innovative designs with ceramics, stained glass, wrought iron, and wood to represent nature. Gaudí produced his most splendid work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when Barcelona experienced epic changes through the Industrial Revolution and the Renaixensa, a revival of Cataluña’s traditional arts and crafts combined with fervent politics against the Madrid-dominated government. These transitions set Gaudí squarely at the center of Catalan Modernisme, a movement that cut across architecture, art, music, literature, and society at large. He was years ahead of other avant-garde European creators. He revolutionized the architecture of his day using color, combining different materials, and representing movement through geometrical designs. His work became Spain’s finest examples of Modernisme and made him one of the country’s most well-known designers and architects.

Gaudí built El Capricho in Comillas from 1883–1885 as a summer house for a wealthy client. Here began the architect’s trend toward Modernisme. Ceramic tiles of yellow sunflowers and green leaves covered the house’s tower. The bright white stones of the four columns supporting it contrasted with red brick and ceramic tiles. Climbing up the steep spiral staircase, we gazed over the verdant pastures and forests to the sea. With a view like that, the house started to make a little more sense.

In 2018, during my first trip to Barcelona, we visited Gaudí’s absolutely-must-see-site Sagrada Familia. The architect began this still unfinished Catholic Church the size of a cathedral in 1883. It encapsulates the architect’s three passions: organic shapes with few straight lines and no right angles woven into in structures that symbolized Christ’s life. Gaudí created 18 spire-like towers representing the Twelve Apostles, four Evangelists, and Mary and Jesus. The flying buttresses and twisted towers can be seen from anywhere in the city. Wandering through the church, I was so moved by the light radiating through the stained glass, I failed to notice the religious symbolism.

Sagrada Familia exterior and interior. Photographs don't being to capture the beauty and design.

Two years ago, in the city of León, Fabio and I stopped by Gaudí’s Casa Botines, the largest house he built. The architect used medieval and neo-Gothic designs to reflect the city’s style. It was closed but Fabio had a chat with the architect in front.

Fabio having a chat with friend Gaudi

This trip, I put Gaudí-designed houses and park at the top of my sightseeing list. The intrigue, and weirdness, of his work called me. But as I wandered through hallways, balconies, salons, bedrooms, and living rooms and up and down staircases, the design elements that made him famous captivated me. They looked weird, yes, but beautiful. I also discovered surprising connections to the work and period of my great-grandfather, Victor Falkenau, a building contractor in Chicago, about whom I’m writing a nonfiction book, who lived an ocean and half a continent away.

When Gaudí built the house, Casa Vicens, also between 1883 and 1885, he wanted to integrate each section of the house so its owners and guests could experience the house as a whole. He ensured that each decorative element reflected one another. The marigolds in the garden inspired the architect to use flower patterned tiles on the exterior. To absorb the house’s tranquility, I sat in the enclosed patio off the dining room to sense how the outlines of leaves, vines, and trees on the walls melded into the patio and onwards to the garden.

Casa Vicens: exterior, towers, entrance, designs of leaves and walls of dining room

Gaudí filled Casa Batlló with natural light by establishing a central skylight and two patios. The light reflected off varying tones of blue ceramic tile. The space transported me to the sea. He designed smaller windows on the upper floors than the lower ones to distribute light equally. He decorated the façade with broken glass and tile creating a mosaic that highlighted color and shine. He also recycled materials any time and place he could. The oak doors with their undulating organic shapes and stained glass panes called waves to mind.

Casa Batllo: light reflected on tiles, dining area, wooden door frame with stained glass, recycled tiles in mosaic (credits Casa Batllo)

Even after a strenuous hike, my gams still smarted climbing stairs. But I nearly sailed up the wooden staircase in Casa Batlló. The height of the banister and between the rises made for an easy glide. I was so busy ogling at the beauty that I didn’t notice the lift in my legs.

Park Güell featured Gaudí’s organic shapes, including a serpent, shells, and waves that suggested the shore. He avoided straight lines designing the space around the natural topography.

Park Guell: tower, mosaic in ceiling, Gaudi's iconic serpent, tiles for mosaics

It’s taken a decade and thousands of steps for me to appreciate Gaudí’s genius. It wasn’t because our hike wore down my mind and body and weariness made me vulnerable. Writing a book on Victor Falkenau and his impact on the development of Chicago, I now come at Gaudí with personal ties and a different reference point. I see architectural movements within the social, economic, and cultural changes accompanying the Industrial Revolution and how they shaped my family along with millions of others, America, and the world.

Next week, I’ll share surprising information that connects Gaudi with my great-grandfather and the historical and architectural events in Spain and Chicago.